ELEMENTS IN CHRISTIANITY WHICH ADAPT IT TO BE 

 THE UNIVERSAL AND ABSOLUTE RELIGION 



BY HENRY C. MABIE 



[Rev. Henry C. Mabie, Corresponding Secretary, American Baptist Missionary 

 Union, b. Belvidere, Illinois, June 20, 1847. B.A. University of Chicago, 

 1868; M.A.,D.D. ibid. Pastor of State Street Baptist Church, Rockford, Illinois, 

 1869-73; Oak Park Baptist Church, Chicago, 1873-75; Brookline Baptist 

 Church, Massachusetts, 1876-79; First Baptist Church, Indianapolis, 1880-85; 

 Central Baptist Church, Minneapolis, 1888-90. Author of In Brightest Asia; 

 Romanism- in Four Chapters, etc.] 



THE general department of thought under which I am asked to 

 speak in my contribution to this Congress is " The Influence of 

 Religion upon Civilization." 



I was assured that I might have freedom to treat such aspect 

 of the subject as appealed to me. Accordingly I shall confine 

 myself to the ascertainment of the place of Christianity as the final 

 'religion. 



This is a day of wide and varied study of comparative religion, 

 a matter broad as mankind, enduring as time, and profound as the 

 needs of man. The subject is homed in every country, inwoven 

 in every epoch in history, and connected with every type of 

 thought. " Religion is the one elemental and eternal thing in 

 man ; '' indeed, man has been defined as " an animate being with 

 religion." 



Vain would be an attempt in any single paper to deal with more 

 than one aspect of the broad theme. I am among those who 

 would have ample justice done to any and every aspect of religion, 

 in whatsoever form the religious instinct has expressed itself. 

 Every form of religion, even the crudest fetichism, gives utterance 

 to some deep hunger of the soul, and so hints a thought of God. 

 Every religion has an element of value, and its phenomena deserve 

 to be carefully registered and pondered; for example, animism even 

 at its lowest, holds a belief in the existence of a human spirit, in the 

 antagonism of spirits good and bad, in the possibility of some sort 

 of communion of spirits, and in the future life of spirits. The 

 savage idolater does not really worship the symbol before which 

 he bows; he simply tries thus to realize and localize the spirit 

 which he fears. The rude African who would not complete a 

 bargain with the European trader until he should have time to go 

 and bring his fetich which he had forgotten, is far more to be 

 commended than the modern nominal Christian who essays to con- 

 duct his business apart from his profession of the most spiritual 

 religion; nay, the African, in loyalty to his crude conscience, reads 



